sucktastic four
Despite Mickey’s and my best efforts, that darned movie cleaned up at the US box office this weekend. For my part, I was mentally poisoning the box office and ordering all American moviegoers to see things my way and just ignore the movie. I think Mickey was ordering everyone to go see Batman instead. The terrible reviews, news of the fiasco that was the premiere, and just general dissing all over cyberspace all cheered us greatly.
Hardly complimentary my dear highnesses, you say, why use your venom on them?
Partly we were gunning for a bigger box office take for the new Batman, a movie Mickey had been eagerly anticipating for a year — a whole year, dammit — and which lived up to all the hyper-expections a longtime fan could possibly have. In solidarity, I was hoping that the Tom Cruise meltdown would send War of the Worlds to box office hell, but I guess the combination of Spielberg aliens wreaking havoc, Tom Cruise, and, ok, Spielberg aliens wreaking havoc, proved irresistible. If Batman had opened bigger the weekend before, we wouldn’t have worried. But it needed a clear field if it was going to make it to 200m.
Partly, the Fantastic Four trailers totally sucked. Color me old-fashioned, but I like my superhero stories meatier, less flashy, and with a solid emotional core. Don’t worry, we reassured each other, the movie’s gonna tank. Batman’s gonna clean up this weekend for sure.
So what the hell happened?
“Maybe that’s what people really look for in superhero movies,” I ventured a guess this morning. “Hot bodies, explosions, soundbites.”
“I don’t think so,” said my dejected husband. “Look at Spiderman.”
“Yeah ok then. I guess Schumacher really just poisoned the Batman franchise and people didn’t want to see anymore of it.”
“I guess that’s it.”
“And as it turns out, the TomKat spectacle hurt Katie more than it hurt Tom.”
“Yeah, dammit!”
“And I guess people just think Jessica Alba’s really hot.”
“Yeah, that must be it.”
Why, oh why don’t you listen to us, America?